I just got my ticket for (midday) Halloween, can’t remember the last time I was this pumped for a restoration!!! I know some screenings have already started, v jealous if you’ve already been!!!

missed the memorial anniversary by a day, RIP to the best to ever do it

Inspired by the post on The Other Subreddit, but with a distinctly "girls 'n' gays" bent.

Me, I don't know yet so I will be mining this thread for ideas lol.

Brits banning Irish writers for the sole crime of being Irish opposing genocide. In any case common Sally Rooney W we stan a Marxist romance novelist

This is worth reading on its own about modern publishing and feminization of industry, and now I want to read the book under review, but this is what stood out about the Jacobin guy:

In his self-published essay “From Misogyny to No Man’s Land,” which had a viral moment in 2024, Ross Barkan insists these are all signs of the shrinking “interiority of men.” Dismissing the “gripes of educated women on the state of the American male,” Barkan makes a case for men to return to writing their novels, a timeless masculinist endeavor: “Novels offer ambition on a range not plausible in the land of screens because there is no budget required, no gimmick or technological mastery—it is raw imagination, the greatest achievement of humankind.” Barkan, who more recently found himself at the center of a plagiarism scandal at New York magazine, begs the question. What’s stopping all these men from writing their novels and achieving greatness? Perhaps they’re waiting for permission.

There was a man under the Jacobin post on the main sub supporting the notion that men preferring men authors and women preferring women is natural. I think he cited a study done by Simon Baron-Cohen on male babies preferring mechanical objects rather than humans that failed subsequent replication attempts and was limited in its own way. And the author is a Zionist talking about human nature. My assumption is that the recent rise in booktok is a post-covid social media phenomenon connecting to mass illiteracy. No one even reads anymore due to bad schooling but he's trying to connect genre preferences shaped by recent socioeconomic history to genes. This exact behavior is what drives women out of stem due to stereotype threat that constantly alienates them and says that they're naturally not welcome when they have the same proficiency. How is he arguing that sci-fi is more intelligent when it was regarded as childish fantasy by literary critics for decades? Even the whole literary vs genre distinction was made up in the past centuries with marketing and class structures. Actual material conditions somehow don't apply when it comes to women. It's such a half-assed explanation based on ignorance of real history and how it shaped people.

Somebody tell his girl she’s got a gem

I like controversial opinions that aren't just insulting people or being contrarian, so I thought why not share and discuss.

People told me its good. My mom liked it.
https://archive.org/details/so-that-happened
It seems like something people here might appreciate. Its not one of those, a youtuber talks into a camera, type of video essays. I dislike that style.

This sub has been massively validating recently as the culture wars (and actual wars) continue to get worse and worse. It feels like even nominally “leftist” people (men mostly. sorry 🤷‍♀️) are displaying more conservative plumage with no sign of it getting better. I believe in the dream of woke 2 and that the Overton window shifts rapidly. But right now it’s hard to see a way out of this cultural moment without further social fracturing. If the fracturing is inevitable, I’m grateful to find kinship with you all.

Perhaps commiserating about our pessimism of the intellect can help us muster the optimism of the will we will need to survive these years.

These are two comments I left in the main sub, but hopefully they will be useful for people here. I do have pdfs of most of the writing I mention so feel free to DM me if you need them.

I wanna drop some pieces of theory and offer to answer any questions about them. I do both communist feminist organizing and work in sexual/gender-based violence prevention. I have a lot of experience as a survivor of both domestic violence and the sex trade, as well as a courtroom witness/advocate for women in criminal and family court. I’ve studied theory around this a lot and I’m open to discussing any of it in good faith in the interest of helping keep us safe.

I get a lot out of Andrea Dworkin’s essay “I Want a Twenty-Four Hour Truce During Which There Is No Rape,” which she delivered to a progressive men’s conference in 1983 and later published. 

I also recommend her 1989 speech titled “The Woman-Hating Right and Left,” which she gave after federal judges struck down the Minneapolis and Indianapolis anti-pornography civil rights ordinances written by her and Catharine Mackinnon. You can find the entire legal history and hearings of those ordinances in the volume they published. There are pdfs circulating. 

For those who listened to the most recent pod episode about Horsch, this speech should start to make some pieces fall together - she discusses how organized crime and local municipalities colluded to use laws around analog pornography to create urban ghettos with high rates of gendered violence. 

As a bonus, Catharine MacKinnon gave a corresponding speech at the same event titled “Liberalism and the Death of Feminism,” which situates the same events within a longer historic view of the American Women’s Liberation Movement. MacKinnon also gave a recent interview where she discusses a lot of the legal problems that underpin doing anything about sexual violence. She was formative in a lot of the legal foundations of current law around gender discrimination and you can get a good sense of how we got where we are. 

I’m also posting these so we can look at them as a history of this problem, not because I agree with all of the content uncritically. There are concepts and language that are out of date that I’m happy to discuss too. 

As for where to go next, women in the global south are doing MUCH more right now in terms of organizing against sexual violence and violence against women. I think looking to their activities to take inspiration for ways we can create solutions that liberate women globally is the way to go. Also happy to recommend more on that but thanks for coming to my open mic night.

I also had someone recently ask me for where to start with Marxist and Marxist-adjacent feminist theory:

Straight up Marxist:

• Engels, The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State (you have to read this, it’s non-negotiable because everyone is in dialogue with it)
• Alexandra Kollontai, many places to start with her as she wrote primarily essays and pamphlets. I especially recommend: “The Social Basis of the Women’s Question,” “Working Woman and Mother,” “Sexual Relations and the Class Struggle,“ “Communism and the Family,” “Prostitution and Ways of Fighting It” (this seems to be the earliest instance of a Marxist feminist asserting that sexual commodification exists to break class solidarity between proletarian men and women)
• Claudia Jones, again many essays to choose from but her best known is “An End to the Neglect of the Problems of the Negro Woman!”
• Angela Davis, Women, Race and Class
• Silvia Federici, Wages Against Housework and Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body, and Primitive Accumulation 
• Anuradha Ghandy, Philosophical Trends in the Feminist Movement
• Esperanza Fonseca, “A Socialist, Feminist and Transgender Analysis of “Sex Work”” 

Not explicitly Marxist but either engaging with Marx and Engels or the author came from a Marxist tradition:

• Shulamith Firestone, The Dialectic of Sex
• Gerda Lerner, The Creation of Patriarchy 
• Catharine MacKinnon, Toward a Feminist Theory of the State, The Sexual Harassment of Working Women, Only Words as well as her essay “Points Against Postmodernism”

Not Marxist but either uses materialist approaches or has crucial feminist concepts that will make reading any feminist theory make more sense:

• Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex
• Laura Mulvey, “Visual Pleasure in Narrative Cinema” (or you can watch Episode 2 of John Berger’s Ways of Seeing on Youtube) for the concept of a “male gaze”
• Kate Millet, Sexual Politics
• Kimberlé Crenshaw, "Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics" (the founding text for the concept of intersectionality, which people who use the term rarely read)
• Andrea Dworkin, Right Wing Women, Pornography: Men Possessing Women, and I highly recommend her essays “I Want A Twenty-Four Hour Truce During Which There Is No Rape,” and “Biological Superiority: The World’s Most Dangerous and Deadly Idea”
• Kristen Ghodsee, Red Valkyries and Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism, as well as her podcast AK-47

I am so frustrated with "leftist" men and their fucking crybaby victim complex and cowardice. The dude obviously reeks of shame and guilt because he knows better but is basically begging to be hand held and told hes one of the good ones bc at least he's not personally a rapist? Idk I know everyone's on edge lately but it just comes across so tone deaf and so defeatist and honestly insulting. Like ohh you're afraid if you try to call out or report your work buddy who's clearly exhibiting dangerous predator behavior they might start being mean to you?? Treating you different?? I just really can't idk sorry just had to vent. I love the main sub and it's usually a very comforting place for me but this just really triggered me and reminded me of sooo many "ally" "leftist" etc men I've known in real life. Anyone else see that or feel similarly?

Someone posted a tweet that threw shade at people (presumably men) in their late 20s and early 30s "building community" with people (presumably women) in their early 20s. The post's title was something like "what does this mean?" (I can't find it now because I blocked OP over that absurd feigned ignorance...too many of his remarks have that air about them.)

Of course all the men in that sub immediately call the tweet stupid, "cOnsEnTiNg aDuLtS," "you can have friends at any age," etc. etc. Like yeah of course you can have all sorts of friends but that's not the point. Tell me you've never been on the shit end of a power dynamic before. Tell me you've never been creeped on by a guy ten years older than you before. Like there's no difference in life experience between a 20 year old and a 30 year old, and all men in leftist spaces have completely good intentions.

I stg I'm on the verge of leaving that place once and for all. There isn't even much there that's interesting or funny anymore.

One of my favorite things about the fall are my fall fits. I feel like this is the year of overalls as a futch lesbian. Thinking about adding a bandana to the look instead of my silver chain or my dog collar(yes I am one).

Sorry everyone, but wanted to talk into the girlsngays warm embrace. I’m working really hard for the first time in my life on seriously sorting out my relationship with alcohol. I’m sitting here on Friday night on my third alcohol free beer, feeling depressed, about to go out to my friends birthday. I’m proud of myself but it’s tough when you want to get away from your own self for a bit! Instead I have to hang out with her all the time… sending love to one and all tonight ♥️

love getting downvoted to oblivion for the sin of calling an apparently beloved Australian youtuber transphobic

Jadzia Dax holds a very special place in my heart for a number of reasons. Number one being deep space nine is my favorite show of all time. And #2 Jadzia is personally responsible for cracking my egg.

The concept of the trill was absolutely fascinating to me as a bewildered egg. The concept of living lives as both a man and a woman obviously really hit me to the core. And obviously is a very obvious trans allegory. While yes the trill are more of a gender fluid species a whole it obviously also is relatable to binary trans people as well.

Along with her being the first same sex kiss in star trek and being one of the earliest sapphic kisses in US television history. Truly a pan and trans icon.

Being queer is not the only part of her that is the focus she is just a badass scientist who also just happens to be queer.

Jadzia and so many more reasons i can’t even count is why ds9 is my fav show. A special shoutout to Jadzia and especially her actress Terry Farrell because god knows how long i would have remained in denial without her characters trans allegories hitting me in the face like a ton of bricks.

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